


stood there grateful for the lie

by alutiv



Series: make this world look new again [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Guess Who's Back, M/M, Not a Reunion, Three-Flat Problem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-27 12:31:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/978911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alutiv/pseuds/alutiv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“My dearest little brother, did you really think nothing would change in your absence?”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first place Sherlock goes is Baker Street. The flat is dark, deserted, old sheets draped over the furniture. The bison skull is on the floor, propped up at an angle, headphones askew. His bedroom is full of boxes. The even layer of dust tells him no one has been here in months. He climbs the stairs, spine stiffened, to the other bedroom. There are no boxes there, no personal effects of any kind. He sits heavily on the stripped mattress, steeples his fingers under his chin, and closes his eyes. Another set of footfalls climb the stairs. He knows exactly who it is, and, more important, who it is not.  
  
“You can’t have expected him to stay here.”  
  
“Why are you in my flat?”  
  
He opens his eyes to find Mycroft in the doorway, swinging his umbrella upward and inspecting the metal tip. “Since the rent cheques have been coming from my accounts for the last three years, it could be argued that it is, in fact, my flat.”  
  
Sherlock rolls his eyes, grits his teeth, feels the muscle pulse in his jaw, then says, “And I thank you for that, but I have things to do, and don’t you have a _coup_ to manage somewhere?”  
  
“My dearest little brother, did you really think nothing would change in your absence?”


	2. Chapter 2

In a gloomy parking garage, Sherlock watches Lestrade search for something in his inside jacket pocket. Hidden in shadow, Sherlock smirks at the memory of a stack of warrant cards in a desk drawer at Baker Street. Lestrade's hair gleams silver in the dim lighting. It's clipped shorter than Sherlock remembers ever seeing it. That’s significant, but he can’t deduce why just yet.  
   
Three years is a long time, long enough for much to change, as Mycroft so irritatingly reminded him on his way out the door.  
  
He could have asked his brother for updates on his friends while he was gone, but that would have given Mycroft the chance to refuse. This way, he can still tell himself that it was his choice not to know.  
   
Lestrade pulls his hand from his pocket, producing a single cigarette and a lighter. Sherlock’s fingers twitch when the lighter flares, but he’s back on the patches and determined to stay that way. Lestrade smokes the cigarette down to the filter, tosses it to the cement, and crushes it. The resigned longing on his face says he’s rationing what he’s promised will be his last pack.  
  
Sherlock could walk up to Lestrade right here, but it’s just now dawning on him that he needs more data before he can face those he left behind.


	3. Chapter 3

He ought to be glad that they have moved on with their lives. He ought not resent that they have moved on with their lives.

Sherlock Holmes has never been all that good at doing what he _ought_.

John is seated at a window table in a restaurant that is too expensive, too fancy, too _French_. It’s all wrong. Also wrong: that moustache. Tucked in the shadowed entrance to a bookshop across the street from the brightly lit restaurant, Sherlock shakes his head, wanting very badly to hand the man a razor. What has happened to John and Lestrade that they’ve altered their appearance so?

He’s one to talk about changing appearance, he knows, but he’s been rooting out Moriarty’s web; he needed to become someone else along the way.

Sherlock sees John look up from the menu, smiling. Lestrade has joined him at the table, but instead of just taking the seat opposite, Lestrade pauses at John’s side, leans down, and kisses him.

Oh. _Oh_.

Three years of breaking down a worldwide criminal network wasn’t enough to completely occupy his mind, and so he’s had time to think about these men and what they mean to him. He never once thought about what they could mean to each other.

Not for the first time, Sherlock recognises the advantage of caring.

**Author's Note:**

> This is another Three-Flat Problem, with my thanks once again to [LapOtter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LapOtter) and [corpsereviver2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/corpsereviver2) for the format concept and name.
> 
> Standard disclaimers about ownership of characters apply. Several details were suggested by the S3 teaser-trailer.
> 
> The title is a lyric from the Gin Blossoms' "Lost Horizons".


End file.
